From the Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society Promise Kept

Volume 42, Issue 1 January 2019

News from the Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society

Rescuing the Art of Jacob Barosin Pg 1-2

Message from the President Pg. 2

The First Protestant Ordination in Canada was for a German Reformed Minister. Pg. 4

Promise Kept With a 2018 Annual Meeting Pg. 5 Paintbrush

The story of a Holocaust Survivor who lived to illustrate Thank You Supporters the “Life of Christ” Pg. 7 Jacob Barosin was a man of many talents with one of those complicated 20th century life stories that took him from Russia to Germany to France and finally to the United States. Pastor News From the Archives Martha Kriebel has given voice and exposure to one of Pg. 8 Barosin’s professional traits, showing for the first to a general audience his craft and dedication, in this case, his art applied to a central Christian theme. It can be hoped that curiosity in Barosin’s art will broaden interest in his work. In Memoriam Pg. 10 Dr. Frank Mecklenburg, Director of Research and Chief Archivist, Leo Baeck Institute, New York/Berlin 1

"Finally, after eleven years and a failed attempt to get decent photos of watercolors slowly deteriorating from mold, now the 75 paintings of the "Life of Christ," saved by Dick Berg by accepting to house them at the Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society, are ready to meet the public through the book "Promise Kept with a Paintbrush: The story of a Holocaust survivor who painted the 'Life of Christ.'" The watercolors are "preserved" via a copyrighted CD which, along with the book, is available for sale through the ERHS with the proceeds benefitting the Society. Hopefully, the book will be in print in mid to late January and the purchase price will be determined by that time.

"As I was doing research for the book, more and more tangent stories were and are still being discovered: The Leo Baeck Institute in NYC and Dr. Frank Mecklenburg; renewed conversations with Jewish friends who are celebrating not only the work of the Jewish artist, Jacques/Jacob Barosin, but that his portrayal of Christ can invite dialogue between Jews and Christians; the role the Evangelical and Reformed staff working out of 1515 Race St., Philadelphia, and Eden Seminary, especially Rev. Dr. Oscar Rumpf, played in commissioning and then displaying the work beginning in 1951; and most of all the witness of French Christians (the Reformed Church) who risked their lives to shelter Jewish refugees during World War II;and the realization that the "Three Loves" and all the social ministries of the United Church of Christ are a carrying forward of the witness and commitment of those who have gone before us. The past carried into the present."

The Rev. Dr. Martha Bean Kriebel

From the President of the Board

Greetings in this year of 2019! As our country and the world continue to grapple with violence, hatred, prejudice, poverty, hunger and disease, may we hear the words from a prayer for the church adapted from the Evangelical and Reformed Church Hymnal of 1941: “O God, we pray that you will remove from us all hatred, prejudice, and narrowness of thought; that we might receive and rejoice in all the blessings you abundantly give.” From small acts of love, blessings will grow, the light of hope that guided the magi to the infant Jesus, will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome the light.

Our 2018 annual meeting held in St. Louis was a tremendous success thanks to the work of Board members Joy Dressel and Lorin Cope and their hard working committee. Larry Bolick’s report about the meeting appears elsewhere in this newsletter. I would like to invite any interested persons to serve on the planning committee for the 2019 annual meeting.

One of the important actions of the annual meeting was the authority given to the Board to pursue the change in governance of the Society from a membership based to a donor based model. This invests the governance of the Society totally in the Board of Directors which provides more flexibility and quicker action on items needing attention rather than having to call a membership meeting to handle Society business. The next steps in this process are proposed revisions to the bylaws and, with the help of a lawyer, amending the charter of the Society to reflect the new governance model. This will require legal expenses which the Board has authorized. Once these items have been completed, the membership, during the 2019 annual business meeting, will be asked to vote on the new model. Once affirmed by the membership, the new model will take place immediately. The Board will then have the responsibility to elect Board members, pass the budget and oversee the finances and endowment fund, supervise staff, promote the Society, and raise funds. The new model will also enable more timely short and long-range planning and response to issues and problems. If you have questions about this new model, please contact me directly ([email protected]).

The Society continues to receive collections of records from churches and individuals. The Archives and Collections Committee is busy working on contacting churches and offering the Society’s services to help with records. To properly house the records we have blessed with a second grant of $500 from the Foundation of First Church, Lexington, North Carolina to be used for additional archival shelving. That shelving has arrived at the Society and will be installed in the next few weeks. The standard archival size shelving enables us to adequately house records rather than having boxes stick out over shelves and getting damaged.

The Society could not continue its work without your support. Your generosity to the Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society has shone brightly during the past yer. Our first annual appeal has inspired many of you to support the work of the Society generously with the total now at $13,000! This is more than the Society has received in individual donations in many years and is a first step in changing the governance of the Society from membership based to donor based. Your support has generated over one third of the Society’s budget of $45,455 for 2019. As you can see however, we need to continue to raise additional funds to meet the budget and so, we ask for your continuing support. Elsewhere in this newsletter you will read about the generous gift of charitable annuity by an anonymous donor who has challenged all of us to consider setting up additional ones through United Church Funds. The Development Committee is also encouraging individuals to remember the Society through bequests and through major gifts to the Society’s recently established endowment fund. Please do not hesitate to contact me or the Society office for additional information.

Please continue to check the Society’s website for updates and news between newsletters. We anticipate a busy year responding to research enquiries, processing collections, seeking collections, raising funds, and promoting the importance of the Evangelical and Reformed heritage for the contemporary church and society. I look forward to working with you as we seek to fulfill the Society’s mission.

Dick Berg

THE FIRST PROTESTANT ORDINATION IN CANADA WAS FOR A GERMAN REFORMED MINISTER!

Richard H. Taylor (July 2018)

From 1713, despite a legal British title to Nova Scotia, Acadians (French) and Indians controlled most of the peninsula. In the late 1740s the British decided to get full control by settling Protestants on the ground. Halifax began in 1749. In the next few years offers of free land attracted royalists, Yankees, Scots, and Germans. By 1753 about 2,400 German-speakers came, mostly from the Upper Rhine, Switzerland, and Montbeliard. The new town of Lunenburg, established in 1753, became the primary German community.1 As was common in Pennsylvania, both Reformed and Lutherans began to meet in homes, though also sometimes at the Anglican Church established in the town. In 1759 the local Lutherans met with Michael Schlatter, who was serving as a Royal Chaplain at the Siege of Louisbourg. They asked him to seek aid from Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. No immediate aid came. Throughout the next decade the German settlements became more stable and both Church groups became more energetic in seeking ministers and their own buildings. In 1768 the Reformed group appealed to the Coetus of Pennsylvania who passed the request to the Classis of Amsterdam. "From New Lueneburg, a town in Nova Scotia, we receive the most piteous appeals and requests for a regular minister. Eighty families have not had the Word of God preached and the symbols and seals of the covenant administered to them for seventeen years, and their children grow up without being instructed in the mysteries of salvation."2 This brief period between the French and Indian War and the Revolution (1763-1774) was a trying time for the Reformed churches in America as well and no clergy were available. In 1770 the Lunenburg people decided to take things into their own hands and seek the ordination of one of their own pious laymen, Bruin Romkes Comingoe (1723-1820). Inclined to decency and good order, they requested other ministers from Reformed groups in Nova Scotia to meet and examine him. Four clergy met at the Mather's Church in Halifax on July 3, 1770: two Congregationalists (Benajah Phelps, a Yale graduate, and John Seccomb, a Harvard graduate), and two Presbyterians (James Lyon, of English background, but who attended Princeton, and James Murdoch, a Scottish Covenanter). Their meeting is often referred to as a "presbytery," since the four were "presbyters," (or teaching elders), but it was not like the standing presbyteries of our times. The process used here would have been familiar to the Congregationalists, for it was what they would call a "vicinage council," a council of the ministers of the area.3 The Presbyterians seemed less worried about the temporary structure of the meeting but went to efforts to explain the ordination of someone without a formal theological education, citing examples of other presbyteries ordaining people to serve in mission settings or minority ethnic communities. The actual ordination service was an elaborate affair with the Colonial Governor and Council in attendance. It is generally considered the first Protestant ordination in Canada.4 Comingo, who dropped the "e" from his last name, but who was often referred to, following his first name, as Mr. Brown, was forty-six at the time of his ordination. The congregation (High Dutch Reformed Congregation) built its first building the same year as the ordination, continued to petition the Classis of

1 The Lunenburg name was chosen to honor King George II, who was also Elector of Hanover, and Duke of Brunswick- Lunenburg. 2 Coetal letter of 1768 to Classis, in “Minutes and Letters of the Coetus of the German Reformed Congregations in Pennsylvania...” (Philadelphia, 1903), p.276. 3 After 1692, the Royal Governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire forbade the meeting of formal Synods. So this more ad hoc method continued to be the normative form for ordinations. 4 This is sometimes disputed, citing the ordination of a Separatist minister by four lay people ten months earlier. 4

Amsterdam, and sent an elder to New York and Pennsylvania in 1772 seeking aid. Comingo also extended his charge to include other nearby German settlements. He continued to serve until the age of 96! Only two years before his death, the parish finally secured an assistant pastor, Johann Adam Moschell (1795-1849), a Palatinate from Mannheim who had attended Heidelberg University in Germany. He was able to strengthen the outlying parts of the charge, eventually extending it to six points. The town Church built its present building in 1828. Isolated, however, Moschell grew homesick, and decided to return to Germany in 1837. He encouraged the congregations to affiliate with another Reformed body, and they found a pastor from the young Synod of Nova Scotia in Connection to the Church of Scotland. This change forced on all the congregations an abrupt change to English. The town Church eventually became known as St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, and is reported to have the "longest history of any Presbyterian Church in Canada." Generations later, when the United Church of Canada was formed in 1925, the town Church, as well as that at Rose Bay became part of the continuing Presbyterian Church of Canada, while the former charge congregations in Bridgewater and Mahone Bay united with local Methodist Churches in the United Church.

Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society Annual Meeting September 21-22, 2018

Reported by Rev. Lawrence R. Bolick, ERHS Board of Director Member The Evangelical and Reformed Society met in St. Louis, Missouri on September 21-22, 2018. I had the privilege and opportunity to attend on behalf of the Southern Region—ERHS. Registration began at Eden Theological Seminary on Friday afternoon, where we had a history of the seminary and the life of Rev. Louis Nollau, who called together the German Evangelical Church Society in the West in 1840 and a visit to the new Evangelical Synod Archives, all presented by Mr. Scott Holl, Archivist. I was able to see some of the exterior improvements made to the Seminary Campus due to the generous gift of the Deaconess Foundation. The theme of our annual gathering was “Gateway to the West” with an emphasis on the Evangelical Synod of North America and its history. After visiting Eden Seminary, we were shuttled to Deaconess Center for Child Well- Being, which houses the Deaconess Foundation Office and the newly branded UP-Unleashing Potential which has replaced the old Neighborhood Houses. The new 4-million-dollar building was dedicated in April 2018 when the CHISM Board met in St. Louis. UP sponsors after school care in inner city schools with a daily enrollment of 1400 students at various schools. They sponsor tutoring, summer camps and parent education with the support of the Deaconess Foundation. The Foundation is a hub for networking and local non-profit organizations. The week after our meeting the Foundation was hosting 31 foundations in St. Louis to network on children and youth services that they offer and to project new needed services. On Saturday morning, I attended the ERHS Board of Directors meeting at Eden and in the afternoon, the ERHS met at St. Johns Evangelical United Church of Christ, Mehlville, where “Deutsche Evangelische Kirchenverein des Westens” (The German Evangelical Church of the West) was founded in 1840. Here we had our annual business meeting, a visual history of the church, a power- point presentation on the German Evangelical Synod of the West by Archivist, Mr. Scott Holl, and a panel presentation and discussion on institutional ministries of the Evangelical

Synod. We also heard from Rev. Dr. Ginny Brown Daniel, 5

Conference Minister and then were treated to an informative panel presentation by Rev. William Schwab, Moderator, Rev. Cindy Bumb, Chaplain of Emmaus Homes, Mr. Michael P. Brennan, Executive Director of Every Child’s Hope, Mr. Chris Cox, Executive Director of Hoyleton Youth and Family Services and Rev. Donna Pupillo, Director of Deaconess Nurse Ministry. All these ministries were founded by Evangelical Synod of North America and are now members of CHISM—UCC. We heard about the sale of the Emmaus St. Charles Campus several years ago and upcoming sale of Emmaus Marthasville Campus and the transition to Group Homes for all the developmentally disabled adult residents. Both Children’s Ministries Executive Directors spoke of the transition from orphanages to caring for foster care children, family transitions, parent education and counseling. Deaconess Nursing Director informed us of the focus away from parish nursing to community preventive nursing with its staff of 28 nurses. The annual meeting was attended largely by local church members from the surrounding area. The weekend had been coordinated by local Board members: Mr. Lorin Cope, member of St. Paul’s UCC, St. Louis and Ms. Joy Dressel, a member of St. Lucas UCC, St. Louis and their hosting committee. A very special thanks

to them for making this weekend happen. The highlights of the Annual Business Meeting were as follows:  Budget for ERHS Archives at LTS-Archives $45,455  Total financial assets of the Society are $259,903.57  The Proposed Governance Model was announced with Officers, Directors and Active Committees: Development, Membership/Donor Transition, Archives, Finance, Annual Meeting Planning  Board of Directors will increase from 12 to 15 members which the Constitution provides  Memberships will be phased out to transition to donor-based organization with annual appeal letters and applications for foundation grants  Contacts will be made with UCC Conference Ministers and Associations  A Proclamation of Appreciation was read for out- going Board Members: Dale Taylor Bennett, Rev. Harold Wayne Holste, Frances Slingluff and Rev. Cheryl A. Stoneback for their years of service to the Society  Next Annual Meeting will be September 20-22, 2019 possibly in Cleveland at UCC Church House and a local church After the annual meeting, I decided that I had some time to visit several other UCC churches. I arrived at St. Lucas just before 5 pm and discovered they had a 5 pm traditional service for folks who found it difficult to get out on Sunday mornings. The service was led by Eden Seminarian Kelly Archer since their resident pastor was on vacation. They received a special offering for UCC Disaster Relief in the wake of Hurricane Florence in NC and SC, which was gratifying to express my thanks for their support during this time of great devastations to families and businesses. From there, I ventured to St. Paul’s UCC on Telegraph Road, which was having a Contemporary Christian Music Concert by two local groups as a youth fund-raiser. I met the co-pastor with her husband who showed me the wing of their educational building and fellowship hall that sponsors a day-care center for 150 children five days a week. On Sunday morning at 9 am, I worshipped at one of the oldest Evangelical Churches, Friedens UCC, St. Charles, founded in the 1830’s, from which St. John’s, Melville had formed. Their pastor is Rev. Joshua Pittman, who had served there four years and had previously serviced our UCC Church in Newport News, VA.

The Associate Pastor Rev. Tom Baynham, is a Doctor of Ministry Candidate at Eden and is from Richmond, VA. He is also Music Ministry Director at Friedens. From there I traveled 30 minutes from the northwest side of St. Louis to the southside for the Contemporary Worship Service at St. Lucas at 11 am. A family of three, father, mother and adult daughter, formed the contemporary band for the service. After lunch in downtown St. Louis, I toured the St. Louis Art Museum and St. Louis University Religious Art Gallery in their former chapel. I do have one more year on the Board of Directors which ends my third nine -year-term which began in 1980. We do not have a Southern Region representative except for Rev. James Semmelroth Darnell, who resides in Williamsburg, VA and works at Historic Williamsburg in historical research. Please help me identify a person, who could be nominated in 2019 for a three- year-term, repeated for two-consecutive three year terms.

GRATITUDE TO OUR SUPPORTERS

The 2018 annual appeal was a huge success thanks to the many individuals and institutions that have supported us throughout the year. Please accept our thanks for your many gifts that have helped us continue to collect and preserve our artifacts and history as well as making them available to historians, researchers, and genealogists.

INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY Mr. and Mrs. Christopher and Videen Ms. Jeanne Koch GIFTS Bennett Mr. Jeffrey Dahlman The Rev. Richard Christensen Ms. Deborah Long 1934 Circle ($1,000 and up) The Rev. Dr. Charles Maxfield Ms. Caroline Dunleavy The Rev. Richard and Judy Berg The Rev. Erwin Koch, Jr. Ms. Janet Heil Ms. Joy Dressel Dr. Anne Thayer Mr. John Coble The Rev. John Weiler Mr. Richard Beck The Rev. Joseph Foster Ms. Frances Slingluff Mr. Robert George The Rev. John Oliphant Patron ($50 to $124) Mr. and Mrs. George and Anna Mrs. Catherine M. Shetler Mr. Carl Siegfried Mclean Jr. Bobbi McMullen Mr. Robert Aregood Scholar ($500 to $999) The Rev. John Musser Mrs. Barbara Brown Zikmund Ms. Cheryl Stoneback The Rev. Robert Hunsicker Mr. and Mrs. Paul and Mary Sherry The Rev. Judith Meier Mr. Lorin Cope The Rev. Carol Joyce Mr. Jeffrey Dahlman Friend (up to $49) The Rev. Harry Royer Mr. Gerald Collins The Rev. James Mohr The Rev. Richard Taylor The Rev. William LaSalle The Rev. Ralph Geiman Ms. Barbara Daniel The Rev. Robert Hunsicker Fellow ($250 to $499) Mr. Richard Herber Mr. Herbert Schafale Terry White The Rev. Homer Royer Mr. James Findlay Mrs. Betty Youngkin The Rev. James and Faye Humphrey Mr. Earnest Hawk Mr. Ellwood Kerkeslager Ms. Nancy Inui The Rev. Karen Lovelace Dr. Erlin Lutz The Rev. Lawrence Bolick The Rev. Larry Balleine Ms. Ruth Parks The Rev. Lavon Bayler The Rev. Dr. Kenneth Clapp Mr. Garland Gates The Rev. Richard Benner Historian ($125 to $249) Mr. Ralph Cook Mr. Thomas Busteed Ms. Kay Shellhase Mr. John Saxton Mr. Mark Daniels The Rev. William Rader The Rev. Stacy Weaver Ms. Robin Knowles Wallace Mr. William Wack Mr. Herbert Davis Mr. John Bonebreak The Rev. Richard Whitney Ms. Marianne Leese Mr. Richard Perschon Mr. William Evans The Rev. Mrs. Eleanor Gold The Rev. Glenn Schultz Mr. Theodore Fritsch Mr. Victor Frohne Dr. Branton Shearer Mr. Dennis Dutterer Mr. James Semmelroth Darnell The Rev. Margaret Rohnacher Mr. Gerald Smith Ms. Eileen Lischer

CHURCH, GUILD, ASSOCIATION, CONFERENCE AND INSTITUTIONAL GIFTS Builder ($500 and up) Sustainer ($250 to $499) Pennsylvania Southeast Conference Supporter ($100 to $249) Trinity United Church of Christ, East Petersburg, PA Evangelical and Reformed, United Church of Christ, St. Stephen’s United Church of Christ, Upton, PA Frederick, MD New Jerusalem United Church of Christ, Fleetwood, PA Grace United Church of Christ, York PA Contributor ($Up to $99) Lancaster Association United Church of Christ Church of the Good Shepherd, Alburtis, PA First Reformed United Church of Christ, Lexington, NC Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne IN Western North Carolina Association Southern Conference St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Birdsboro, PA Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, PA

CHARITABLE GIFT ANNUITY CHALLENGE!

A Charitable Gift Annuity has been set up for ERHS with United Church Funds. The anonymous donor challenges other friends of the ERHS to do the same. The name of the current donor will not be revealed until at least two other Charitable Gift Annuities are set up.

For more information or to arrange for a Charitable Gift Annuity contact Matthew Wagner of United Church Funds and ERHS Board member, [email protected] or contact United Church Funds directly at 475 Riverside Drive Suite 1020, New York, NY 10115 (212) 729-2600 or go to their website; https://ucfunds.org/

NEWS FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE ERHS

THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS! Emma Jones, a student at Franklin and Marshall College studying to be an Epidemiologist. She has been assisting to archive the manuscript and church collections.

The Rev. Homer Royer for sorting and organizing the collections of Carl Bade, Herman Ahrens and Ed Schlingman

The Rev. Robert Hunsicker for translating from German to English, the Synod Minutes of the High-German Reformed Church Held at York, PA September 1817 and Baltimore, 1824

Martha Kriebel for her tremendous work to rescue the 75 Jacques Barosin paintings of “Life of Christ” and documenting, photographing, and creating a book and CD to help benefit the ERHS.

Jay Mentzer and Rebecca French for helping with the 2018 Annual Appeal mailing

ERHS Board of Directors; Advisers; The Rev. Richard Berg The Rev. Lawrence R. Bolick The Rev. Harry Royer The Rev. Dr. Richard Christensen The Rev. Melinda Quellhorst The Rev. Dr. F. Russell Mitman The Rev. Judith Meier OCC The Rev. Barbara Kirchner Daniel The Rev. Richard Taylor Ms. .Carrie Call The Rev. Dr. Deborah Rahn Clemens Ms. Caroline Dunleavy Mr. Matthew Wagner Mr. Lorin Cope The Rev. Keith Tussing Ms. Joy Dressel The Rev. James Semmelroth Darnell Mr. Scott Meyer-Kukan The Rev. Chris Rankin The Rev. Dr. Charles A. Maxfield

During 2018 there were 120 research requests and 22 record groups processed! We also wish to thank the following organizations and individuals for depositing or donating archival collections to the ERHS in 2018

Katherine Skipper and Mrs. Merle Hodges -1st Reformed Church Lexington, North Carolina. Katherine passed along a story that is all too familiar of how they obtained the material that was donated to the ERHS; How we obtained the material we have: Dr. J. C. Leonard, the founder and the pastor for thirty-six years of First Reformed Church, Lexington, NC, was a meticulous record keeper and he saved all of his records. In 1939, Leonard when he resigned as pastor of First Church, took the records with him and stored them. He died in 1943 but the boxes remained in place until the death of Mrs. Leonard in 1967.

That year, Leonard's son J. C. Leonard, Jr. gave the boxes to Henry Reeves, one of North Carolina's leading genealogists. Reeves died in 1983 and all of his vast accumulation of information, including Leonard's boxes, was inherited by the Genealogical Society of Davidson County. It took the Society nearly three years to separate all the material. As a member of the Society and a member of First Reformed Church, I was told that some boxes contained records of First Reformed Church and also papers pertaining to Catawba College that the Society did not want. I asked for and was given 17 boxes of archives and artifacts. It was then about 1987-8 and the boxes had been in storage for nearly 48 years.

I attended a workshop at Catawba College to learn the best ways to preserve archives. Records pertaining to Catawba College were delivered to the college.

The consistory of First Church had approved the establishment of a History Room in 1982. The appointed History Committee worked once a week for several years to go through and copy all of Dr. Leonard's records.

ADDITIONAL DONATIONS

William Justice –Church Records of Ridge Valley Reformed Church, Sellersville, PA Dolores Rupley –Personal Papers from Frederick A. Rupley Sr. and Jr. Marta Hanahan – Church Records of Grace United Church of Christ, York, PA Barbara Jennings –Church Records of Trinity United Church of Christ, Coplay, PA Laura H. Golden - Personal Papers of Alton Wilbert Barley and Arthur Wilbert Barley. Martha Kriebel - Personal papers, clippings and photographs of Rev. Martha Kreibel William Whitehouse – Church Records of Trinity United Church of Christ, Leesport, PA Cheryl McGraw, Western Reserve Association –Church Records of Williard United Church of Christ, formerly Williard Reformed Church, Akron, Ohio - 1914-2018 Jack Webb - Research Book of the German Reformed Cemetery, Grace U. C. C. Greencastle, PA Faith-Trinity United Church of Christ (Warren, MI) The Zion German Reformed Church (Detroit, MI) 9

IN MEMORIAM The Rev. James H. Gold 1932- May 29, 2018 was a 1957 graduate of Lancaster Theological Seminary where he also received his master's of divinity degree in 1974.He first served as pastor at Nescopeck Mountain Grove Charge of the Evangelical and Reformed Church (now United Church of Christ) from 1957 to 1960, then pastored Middleburg Charge of the UCC from 1960 to 1967. From 1967 to 1996, he served as pastor at the Lutheran Church and United Church of Christ in Ickesburg. After 1996, he served as interim pastor or associate pastor at several churches including First Lutheran Church in Mifflinburg and Trinity Lutheran Church of Cowan.He was a member at Dreisbach United Church of Christ near Lewisburg.Pastor Gold was a founding member of Order of Corpus Christi, a member of the Central Assoc. of Penn Central Conference of UCC where he served on many committees, Mercersburg Society, and E & R Historical Society.

The Rev. Beatrice Weaver McConnell died peacefully at age 94 at The Glen at Willow Valley on Saturday, July 7, 2018. She graduated from the Lancaster Theological Seminary in 1948. That year she became the first woman to be ordained in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, now part of the United Church of Christ (UCC). She began her ministry at St. Paul's Church in downtown Lancaster (now Church of the Apostles). After a year of graduate study at Union Seminary in New York, she had her first solo job in 1955-58 at a four-church parish in Lemasters, PA. In later years she served several churches, especially in Conestoga and Columbia, PA. In 1958, She married Frank McConnell, the organist at St. James' Episcopal (across the street from St. Paul's) and music professor at Lancaster Seminary. They had one son, Mark. In 1959 Beatrice served on the commission that wrote the UCC Statement of Faith. In 1975 she wrote and produced a historical drama about Lancaster Seminary for its 150th anniversary. In 1985 she received the UCC's Antoinette Brown Award for service as a woman in ministry. Lancaster Seminary has honored her with its Founder's Cross.

FIND ERHS ONLINE

Check out our new updated website! The ERHS website is: www.erhs.info.

Follow us on Facebook: Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society We are located on the second floor of the Philip Schaff Library, on the campus of the Lancaster Theological Seminary, 555 West James Street, Lancaster, PA 17603.

ERHS is open to the public Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 9 am – 3 pm. Please call or email in advance of your visit so that we may better assist you. 717-290-8734  [email protected]

THE ARCHIVES AT EDEN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

The records of the Evangelical Synod of North America and Eden Theological Seminary are located on the lower level of the S.D. Press Education Center on the Eden Theological Seminary campus, 475 Lockwood Ave., Webster Grove, MO 63119. For more information, please visit: http://www.eden.edu/s/1645/index.aspx?sid=1645&gid=1&pgid=547

Scott Holl, the archivist, is currently available Monday and Thursday, 8:30 am – noon. Access to the archives is by appointment only. 314-252-3141  [email protected]

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

 Have you used the archives to research your family genealogy?  Did you participate in the Caravan movement or attend one of the church camps?  Is there a pioneering E&R figure that you’d love to learn about? Let us know! We’d like to feature more content from our donors and friends that celebrates and explores the Evangelical and Reformed heritage. Articles, interviews, essays, and photographs are all welcome. If you would like to contribute something to the newsletter or the website, please contact the office by phone 717-290-8734 or email [email protected].

Financial support

ERHS depends upon financial support from individuals, institutions, contributions, inheritance or legacy gifts, and investment income from all who are interested in preserving our heritage.

Your support of the Society through giving helps assure the continuation of its mission.

giving

All contributors to the society receive the ERHS Newsletter twice a year and have access to the archives, where they can conduct genealogical and church historical research.

 INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY GIFTS: CHURCH, GUILD, ASSOCIATION,  1934 CIRCLE ($ 1,000 and up) CONFERENCE, and INSTITUTIONAL  SCHOLAR ($ 500 to $ 999) GIFTS:  FELLOW ($ 250 to $ 499)  BUILDER ($ 500 and up)  HISTORIAN ($ 125 to $ 249)  SUSTAINER ($ 250 to $ 499)  PATRON ($ 50 to $ 124)  SUPPORTER ($ 100 to $ 249)  FRIEND (Up to $49)  CONTRIBUTOR (Up to $ 99

Contact us if you would like information on how to set up a Charitable Gift Annuity for the Society with United Church Funds.

Contact us if you have remembered the Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society in your will or estate plan, or would like information on how to do so.

Send Donations to:

E & R Historical Society 555 W. James Street Lancaster, PA 17603  [email protected] 717-290-8734  www.erhs.info